A/N: Guess who has the 'vid again lolol. Second time this year. This one is more severe than when I last had it, so I'm sorry if I fall behind on things (I'm already behind on my Pirates fic, I do apologise! I don't want to work on any particularly tricky chapters until the brain fog lifts).
Marilyn slunk into her mother's house after around a week of keeping away, listening carefully for any signs of life. The only reason she'd returned at all was because she'd overheard the weekend-long trip she had planned not long before the incident. As it turned out, she'd be gone for two nights, and that meant that Marilyn could shower, sleep, and maybe even eat if there was anything left behind in the cupboards. The little old lady next door had a spare key, recognised Marilyn from childhood, and thanks to her mother's Stepford act that the woman bought without question, she gave her the key with no questions asked when she put on a bashful face and made up a story about having locked herself out.
Slipping in through the front door, she locked it behind her and began a slow check of the place - mostly to make sure it was indeed empty. The last thing she needed was for the plans to have fallen through at the last minute, leaving her to face her mother in an even more foul mood. But it was empty, the only thing even slightly out of place being in her bedroom. The old piggybank usually on her bookcase was now in shards in her bin. It appeared somebody had gone rifling. That just made her laugh, though. She hadn't kept money in that thing since she'd started attending Beauxbatons.
And…there were letters sitting on her window sill. Two of them. Glad that nobody was around to see her eyes light up, she dropped her Beauxbatons-blue sports bag to the floor and strode towards them. One would be from Draco, probably. But the other? Maybe George had come out of the other side of whatever family issues he'd been facing and finally reached out. Or maybe Hermione had written. Hell, even Fred could have. She was closer to George, sure, but she'd hung around with the both of them. Maybe she'd been dramatic in thinking they were trying to create distance - her dire situation infecting her mood and inducing paranoia.
But as she plucked up the letters, she noted the green snake seal on both, and her heart sank. Ah. Draco had written twice. Ordinarily that would have been a curiosity in and of itself, but seeing as it followed one blissful moment when she thought her social circle for the immediate future might stretch beyond one fledgling Death Eater, it had her heart sinking and she suddenly felt twice as tired. Dropping the letters to the bed, she slipped her trainers off and made her way to the bathroom to shower.
It had been a pretty shitty week. It had been her own fault, in a way, too. Her mother had been on one, she'd been intent on getting into a fight, and Marilyn…Marilyn had opened her mouth, snapped back, and given her one. People probably thought that staying quiet was easy, but there were times when it was more difficult than saying nothing, certainly more draining when around somebody intent on getting an argument one way or another, and she'd caved and done it. It felt good for precisely two seconds, before the screaming match began.
And what a screaming match it had been. One of their worst. Prolific, really. It left her throat raw and her wrists red - from the grabbing. It was as physical as she ever got, but she loved to hold her real close while she screamed bloody murder in her face. She'd never hit her, but there were times Marilyn thought she might - and this latest time had come after she'd shrieked at her 'why did you have to be born a witch?!' to which Marilyn cleverly countered with 'why did you have to be born a bitch?' - no doubt when her mother retold that story to others, she'd leave the first half out.
By the time Marilyn stepped out of the shower, she felt a little better, and had the energy to turn her mind to the matter of Draco. Knowing her luck this summer, the second letter could very well be a decision to no longer write. And it'd be a wise decision. Every time she wrote to him, she felt like a kid who was about to be caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and she knew that feeling came from a nifty little thing called survival instincts. But it'd still cut off the one line of sanity she had right now, at least until school started up again, and even that was a pretty bad joke considering he'd been the main culprit for making her lose her bloody mind throughout her fourth year.
After a week of laying low and blowing through most of the Muggle money she'd managed to accumulate just on food and having somewhere to sleep, she needed whatever lifeline she could get. Even Draco bloody Malfoy.
She re-entered her bedroom in a bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel, with a tin of pineapple rings she'd managed to salvage from the back of the kitchen cupboards. Slumping back down onto the bed, she lifted up one of the letters at random, cracked the seal, and opened it. It had been sent a few days after her last letter, and it appeared normal. Not much wanting to read it if the next one was putting an end to things, she scanned it just enough to get the gist and then opened the other.
It was only a couple of lines, and her heart sank as she scanned over them…and then she stilled when none of them were to the effect of don't write again. Then, noting that, she reread the letter - reading it properly this time, comprehending what he'd written. Was it just her, or did Draco Malfoy sound worried? About her?
Assertions that he wasn't capable of worrying about somebody other than himself were the sort of thing she'd have resolutely argued against a handful of months ago, but after how things were left off at Hogwarts, she'd been inclined to agree with them. Or at least not to argue with them anymore. No longer, apparently.
Maybe this was the beginning of a cycle that was growing pathetically familiar to her. Then things would be fine for a bit, and then they'd bicker, and it would all culminate in another letter a few months from now denouncing her as a mudblood wretch.
But he'd double-lettered. Few teenage boys would ever double letter. Draco? Draco seemed the sort who'd rather die. Especially so soon after their spat. And yet, these two letters sat before her in meticulously neat script. He must've cared a hell of a lot.
Sitting back against the pillows, Marilyn cracked open the tin of pineapples and stared at the letters thoughtfully.
21 Aug '95
Draco,
I'm alive, I'm fine, I'm breathing, I live to irk another day. Rough week, tiny bit of drama, sounds a lot more sinister than it is, wasn't around to receive your letters - sorry. Just in case it happens again, I'll include a card with where you can reach me at Beauxbatons on the off chance that I don't get to send another letter. Though it might be a good shout to stop with the green seal when we go back – it's a bit of a giveaway.
How are things with you in the land of the one percent? Eat any good pheasant lately? Thrill me with tales of rich people frivolity, drag my mind away from this sorry shit. Is there a blood feud being waged between your parents and their crockery provider because they requested an oleander pattern and were given lillies instead? I want to hear all about it.
Meryl Monroe
P.S. Thanks for giving a damn, yeah?
22nd August 1995
B,
If we're on the topic of giving a damn, I would point out that being painfully vague and mysterious is the wrong kind of irksome. You've never been much good at leaving anything unsaid - to a fault, some might say - so when something is dire enough for you to actually leave it unsaid, the mind does race somewhat and jump to unsavoury conclusions. She's a Muggle, for Merlin's sake, how bad can she be? She's no way of knowing the age cap on magic use outside of our schools (don't tell me you told her about it - unless Beauxbatons does?) - make some empty threats, keep her in line.
As for what's going on here, we've far too much inherited fine china to have any need to start ordering more in. Although if we see fit to, my parents work with professionals - they'd never be so daft as to mix the two up. I will admit, though, that there was a nasty hem incident in '89 that has my mother still refusing to frequent any Swedish tailors. For future reference, though, as far as poisonous plants are concerned she prefers deathbells to oleander. They work faster.
House of Malfoy trivia aside, I did get a bit of news while you were "off doing very non-sinister odds and ends" – you're looking at (or writing to, as the case may be, unless you have a photograph of me stashed away - and who could blame you for that?) Slytherin's new fifth year Prefect. Snape wrote with the news a few days ago. It was hardly a surprise, it wasn't like I had any competition, but it's still worth celebrating. I already know McGonagall will choose her golden children, Potter and Granger, so it's good to know we'll be on even footing should that lunatic go even more power mad. Does Beauxbatons have prefects?
David M.
P.S. I've included my details for reaching me at Hogwarts, too.
2nd Sept '95
Draco,
I'm not trying to be purposefully vague or mysterious (I have enough mystique about me without resorting to that, thank you very much), it's just all tedious to live through, never mind write. She likes trying to get arguments out of me, and sometimes I'm tired or annoyed or daft enough to give her one, and then I have to make myself scarce for a bit after to avoid more bullshit. It's fine, it's nice to get away, it's just a pain in the arse when it comes to the finer points of having somewhere to get away to. But I'm back at Beauxbatons now, so I shouldn't have much need to disappear between now and summer. Plus, I turn sixteen next summer which means I can strike out on my own.
And unfortunately, she does know about the whole age limit thing - I had to offer it up as a valid explanation as to why she couldn't benefit from my being a Witch. Coincidentally, she decided my being a Witch was the worst thing ever about five seconds later. Detectives will toil for years to connect those puzzle pieces when I write my memoirs in a few decades.
Congratulations on making Prefect! Nobody can say you don't work hard, so it's not much of a surprise. I bet Gryffindors all over the country are breaking into preliminary cold sweats as we speak. Beauxbatons does have them, too, but it was never an option for me - I need to really take my dancing seriously this year, this is the time when things start to pick up properly, Madame Garnier is keen to see that I do this year right. If all goes well, I could have some real prospects by the end of the year. Patrons, contracts, a real budding career. Wish me luck!
Meryl Monroe
P.S. You've been back at Hogwarts for a good twenty-four hours now, right? How many weeks worth of detention have you doled out to unsuspecting eleven year olds? Have you start collecting their tears for Snape's pantry?
